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About This Role
Clearance Level
Top Secret/SCI
Category
Data Science and Data Engineering
Location
Chantilly, Virginia
*(Onsite Workplace)*
Key Skills For Success
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Large Language Models (LLMs)
Machine Learning (ML)
##### REQ\#:RQ225687
##### Public Trust:None
##### Requisition Type:Pipeline
##### Your Impact
Own your opportunity to serve as a critical component of our nation’s safety and security. Make an impact by using your expertise to protect our country from threats.
Job Description
-------------------
We are seeking a mid\-level AI Software Developer to build and integrate AI\-enabled features into mission applications operating on classified networks. Working under the direction of the Senior AI Engineer, you will implement machine learning and large language model capabilities within established architectural patterns and governance guardrails, alongside strong general software engineering work. This role emphasizes practical, production\-quality delivery in an environment where AI systems must run locally — without external API access — and where security, auditability, and data handling discipline are part of everyday engineering.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain software applications incorporating AI/ML capabilities within air\-gapped and accredited government cloud environments
- Implement LLM\-backed features (retrieval\-augmented generation, embeddings, summarization, classification) using locally hosted models and program\-approved patterns
- Build and maintain data pipelines supporting AI\-driven features, with correct classification handling and data hygiene
- Integrate AI capabilities with existing program systems and workflows via REST APIs and structured data formats
- Write clean, testable, well\-documented code; participate in code reviews and follow team engineering standards
- Implement required logging, audit, and evaluation instrumentation per the program's AI rules of engagement
- Support deployment, monitoring, and iterative improvement of AI\-enabled systems, including model updates transferred into the environment
- Collaborate with program staff and stakeholders to refine requirements into working software
Required Qualifications
- Active TS/SCI (poly required or in process)
- 3\+ years of professional software development experience (or 5\+ without a degree)
- Strong Python proficiency and working knowledge of at least one additional language (JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, or similar)
- Hands\-on experience with AI/ML concepts in real projects: model inference, embeddings, vector search, or prompt engineering
- Experience with REST APIs, JSON, SQL, and version control (Git)
- Comfort working in restricted or disconnected development environments, or demonstrated ability to adapt to them
- Strong problem\-solving and communication skills; ability to work on\-site in a SCIF full time
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience running or integrating locally hosted LLMs (Llama, Mistral, Hugging Face transformers, vLLM, Ollama, or similar) rather than solely commercial APIs
- Familiarity with PyTorch or similar ML frameworks
- Experience with Docker and CI/CD pipelines, especially in offline or artifact\-mirrored setups
- Exposure to government cloud (Azure Government, AWS GovCloud) or IC/DoD program environments
- Understanding of data security, classification handling, and responsible AI practices
- Prior NRO or IC program experience
GDIT IS YOUR PLACE
At GDIT, the mission is our purpose, and our people are at the center of everything we do.
- Growth: AI\-powered career tool that identifies career steps and learning opportunities
- Support: An internal mobility team focused on helping you achieve your career goals
- Rewards: Comprehensive benefits and wellness packages, 401K with company match, and competitive pay and paid time off
- Community: Award\-winning culture of innovation and a military\-friendly workplace
OWN YOUR OPPORTUNITY
Explore a career in data science and engineering at GDIT and you’ll find endless opportunities to grow alongside colleagues who share your determination for solving complex data challenges.
### Work Requirements
Years of Experience
8 \+ years of related experience
- may vary based on technical training, certification(s), *or* degree
Certification
Travel Required
None
Citizenship
U.S. Citizenship Required
### Salary and Benefit Information
The likely salary range for this position is $142,792 \- $189,750\. This is not, however, a guarantee of compensation or salary. Rather, salary will be set based on experience, geographic location and possibly contractual requirements and could fall outside of this range.
### Our Identity Verification Process
As part of the hiring process, we will ask you to complete an identity verification process that leverages advanced biometrics and artificial intelligence to ensure authenticity and protect against identity fraud. You are expected to be on camera during virtual interviews. We reserve the right to take your picture to verify your identity and prevent fraud. By proceeding, you authorize the collection, processing, and use of your biometric data for identity verification and security purposes.
### About Our Work
We are GDIT. A global technology and professional services company that delivers technology solutions and mission services to every major agency across the U.S. government, defense and intelligence community. Our 26,000 experts extract the power of technology to create immediate value and deliver solutions at the edge of innovation. We operate across 50\+ countries worldwide, offering leading mission\-ready capabilities in AI, cloud, cyber and software development.
Join our Talent Community to stay up to date on our career opportunities and events at gdit.com/tc.
*Equal Opportunity Employer / Individuals with Disabilities / Protected Veterans*
Salary Context
This $142K-$189K range is below the median for AI/ML Engineer roles in our dataset (median: $175K across 2162 roles with salary data).
View full AI/ML Engineer salary data →Role Details
About This Role
AI/ML Engineers build and deploy machine learning models in production. They work across the full ML lifecycle: data pipelines, model training, evaluation, and serving infrastructure. The role has evolved significantly over the past two years. Where ML Engineers once spent most of their time on model architecture, the job now tilts heavily toward inference optimization, cost management, and integrating LLM capabilities into existing systems. Companies want engineers who can ship production systems, and the experimenter-only role is fading fast.
Day-to-day, you're writing training pipelines, debugging data quality issues, setting up evaluation frameworks, and figuring out why your model performs differently in staging than it did on your dev set. The best ML engineers are obsessive about reproducibility and measurement. They instrument everything. They know that a model is only as good as the data feeding it and the infrastructure serving it.
Across the 4,317 AI roles we're tracking, AI/ML Engineer positions make up 70% of the market. At General Dynamics Information Technology, this role fits into their broader AI and engineering organization.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
What the Work Looks Like
A typical week might include: debugging a data pipeline that's silently dropping 3% of training examples, running A/B tests on a new model version, writing documentation for a feature flag system that lets you roll back model deployments, and reviewing a junior engineer's PR for a new evaluation metric. Meetings tend to be cross-functional since ML touches product, engineering, and data teams.
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
Skills Required
Python and PyTorch dominate the requirements. Most roles expect experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and familiarity with ML frameworks like TensorFlow or JAX. RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) has become a top-3 skill requirement as companies integrate LLMs into their products. Docker and Kubernetes show up in about a third of postings, reflecting the production focus of the role.
Beyond the core stack, employers increasingly want experience with experiment tracking tools (MLflow, Weights & Biases), feature stores, and vector databases. Fine-tuning experience is valuable but less common than you'd think from reading Twitter. Most production LLM work is RAG and prompt engineering, not fine-tuning. If you have both, you're in a strong position.
Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
Compensation Benchmarks
AI/ML Engineer roles pay a median of $214,900 based on 6,420 positions with disclosed compensation. Mid-level AI roles across all categories have a median of $194,400. This role's midpoint ($166K) sits 23% below the category median. Disclosed range: $142K to $189K.
Across all AI roles, the market median is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. For comparison, the highest-paying categories include AI Safety ($287,500) and Research Engineer ($272,100). By seniority level: Entry: $110,000; Mid: $194,400; Senior: $227,400; Director: $274,554; VP: $241,000.
General Dynamics Information Technology AI Hiring
General Dynamics Information Technology has 13 open AI roles right now. They're hiring across Data Scientist, Data Engineer, AI/ML Engineer, AI Software Engineer. Positions span Remote, US, Arlington, VA, US, Chantilly, VA, US. Compensation range: $154K - $287K.
Location Context
Across all AI roles, 15% (635 positions) offer remote work, while 3,657 require on-site attendance. Top AI hiring metros: New York (1,650 roles, $220,000 median); San Francisco (1,335 roles, $265,000 median); Los Angeles (708 roles, $214,112 median).
Career Path
Common paths into AI/ML Engineer roles include Data Scientist, Software Engineer, Research Engineer.
From here, career progression typically leads toward ML Architect, AI Engineering Manager, Principal ML Engineer.
The fastest path into ML engineering is through software engineering with a self-directed ML education. A CS degree helps, but production engineering skills matter more than academic credentials. Build something that works, deploy it, and measure it. That portfolio project is worth more than a Coursera certificate. For career growth, the fork comes around the senior level: go deep on technical complexity (staff/principal track) or move into managing ML teams.
What to Expect in Interviews
Expect system design questions around ML pipelines: how you'd build a training pipeline for a specific use case, handle data drift, or design A/B testing infrastructure for model deployments. Coding rounds typically involve Python, with emphasis on data manipulation (pandas, numpy) and algorithm implementation. Take-home assignments often ask you to build an end-to-end ML pipeline from raw data to deployed model.
When evaluating opportunities: Companies that are serious about AI/ML hiring tend to post specific infrastructure details in the job description: the frameworks they use, their model serving stack, their data pipeline tools. Vague postings that just say 'ML experience required' without specifics are often companies that haven't figured out what they need yet.
AI Hiring Overview
The AI job market has 4,317 open positions tracked in our dataset. By seniority: 138 entry-level, 2,071 mid-level, 1,655 senior, and 453 leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level). Remote roles make up 15% of the market (635 positions). The remaining 3,657 roles require on-site or hybrid attendance.
The market median for AI roles is $215,000. Top-quartile compensation starts at $266,300. The 90th percentile reaches $320,790. Highest-paying categories: AI Safety ($287,500 median, 34 roles); Research Engineer ($272,100 median, 227 roles); AI Engineering Manager ($244,000 median, 23 roles).
Demand for AI/ML Engineers has been strong and consistent. Unlike some AI roles that spike with hype cycles, ML engineering is a foundational need. Every company deploying AI models needs people who can keep them running, and the gap between research prototypes and production systems keeps growing.
The AI Job Market Today
The AI job market spans 4,317 open positions across 15 role categories. The largest categories by volume: AI/ML Engineer (3,004), Data Scientist (345), AI Software Engineer (309). These three account for the majority of open positions, though smaller categories often have higher per-role compensation because of specialized skill requirements.
The seniority mix tells a story about where AI teams are in their maturity. Entry-level roles (138) are outnumbered by mid-level (2,071) and senior (1,655) positions, reflecting that most companies are past the 'build a team from scratch' phase and need experienced engineers who can ship production systems. Leadership roles (Director, VP, C-Level) total 453 positions, representing the bottleneck between technical execution and organizational strategy.
Remote work availability sits at 15% of all AI roles (635 positions), with 3,657 requiring on-site or hybrid attendance. The remote share has stabilized after the post-pandemic correction. Senior and specialized roles (Research Scientist, ML Architect) are more likely to be remote-eligible than entry-level positions, partly because experienced hires have more negotiating power and partly because these roles require less hands-on mentorship.
AI compensation is structured in clear tiers. The market median sits at $215,000. Top-quartile roles start at $266,300, and the 90th percentile reaches $320,790. These figures include base salary with disclosed compensation. Total compensation (including equity, bonuses, and sign-on) runs 20-40% higher at companies that offer those components.
Category matters for compensation. AI Safety roles lead at $287,500 median, while Prompt Engineer roles sit at $145,000. The spread between highest and lowest-paying categories reflects the premium on specialized technical skills versus broader analytical roles.
The most in-demand skills across all AI postings: Python (2,249 postings), Aws (1,224 postings), Azure (938 postings), Rag (915 postings), Gcp (660 postings), Pytorch (640 postings), Prompt Engineering (624 postings), Kubernetes (559 postings). Python dominates, appearing in the vast majority of role descriptions regardless of category. Cloud platform experience (AWS, GCP, Azure) is the second most common requirement. The newer entrants to the top skills list (RAG, vector databases, LLM APIs) reflect the shift from traditional ML toward generative AI applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
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